Frequently Asked Questions
Common Questions
An investment on our platform is an investment in a specific loan secured against property. This type of investment is commonly known as an asset backed security.
Once fully registered on the platform, investors transfer money to their Property Bridges account via bank transfer. Loans are advertised on the platform and all loans will provide details of duration, returns, the borrower and other relevant details related to the loan. Investors can then invest in their preferred loan at the click of a button. When a loan is fully funded investors start accruing interest throughout the duration of the loan. Upon completion of the loan the investor will receive their original investment including interest.
No, your investment is not secured. Your investment is a loan secured against a property. This means that if the borrower fails to repay their loan, Property Bridges can seek to recover any outstanding amounts by enforcing the security and taking possession of the property.
No, investing in our loans is not a risk-free investment and Property Bridges does not guarantee that your capital will be returned. Your investment is also not protected by the Deposit Guarantee Scheme.
No, the income you earn is gross of tax. You are responsible for your own tax affairs. If any further advice is needed please contact a certified tax advisor.
General Investor Questions
Our lending opportunities are loans which have been secured against Irish based properties. We offer bridging, refurbishment, and development finance to construction firms throughout Ireland. Lenders can pick and choose their opportunities taking into account the risk and reward offered on a project by project basis. We would like to stress that even though lending opportunities are secured against Irish based properties, your money is still at risk. Past performance of the market is not an indicator of future returns.
Construction firms contact the team at Property Bridges with information about their project which must pass stringent measures. Experienced property finance, development and legal professionals evaluate each project thoroughly before it is listed.
Given the nature of the construction industry and the number of moving parts present in the construction industry and reliance on different parties, extention requests are not uncommon. The most typical reasons include:
- Planning applications take longer than expected
- Construction work has been unexpectedly delayed (eg. severe weather, delivery delays)
- The borrower is waiting for legal work to be signed before a sale can be completed.
Bridging Loans are a short-term funding option which can be arranged in a matter of days (as opposed to weeks or even months with a traditional mortgage). They are simply weighing up the value of the asset, and the loan requested against it. Factors such as the borrower’s ability to service the repayments on the loan, and the borrowers plans for existing the facility can influence the interest rate offered.
Before making any active lending into our deals, Lenders need to fund their e-wallet. Our e-wallet and payments system is provided by MangoPay. MangoPay are an end to end payments solution that is particularly popular in the crowdfunding and peer to peer space. Your e-wallet will always display the funds available in your account.
No, funds do not earn any interest within the e-wallet.
Interest is calculated on a daily basis, however, the interest is paid at the end of the loan term along with the principle. These are paid back into the e-wallet.
In a mortgage by legal charge or technically ‘a charge by deed expressed to be by way of legal mortgage’, the debtor remains the legal owner of the property, but the creditor gains sufficient rights over it to enable them to enforce their security, such as a right to take possession of the property or sell it. The debtor in this instance can be 1st in line or 2nd in line, for the 2nd charge the debtor will need consent from the 1st debtor to place a charge on the title.
All of the loans offered to investors by Property Bridges are secured against Irish property by either a 1st or 2nd charge.
Yes they are. However, before placing any investment opportunity on our platform, the Property Bridges team reviews all aspects of the proposed deal to ensure quality and to prevent fraud. While we recognize that every investment involves risk, and there is always the risk of losing your capital, we strive to reduce that risk by providing you the transparency and tools you need to make an informed decision. As a Property Bridges member, you have full discretion to decide which projects to invest into and how much, and unlike other investments, your investments on Property Bridges will be secured by a tangible asset – property.
Our team screens each developer and conducts extensive scrutiny of the proposed project before agreeing to list their projects. Depending on the project, the security available and the current market rates we then make an offer to the borrower. However, past performance should not be an indicator of future performance.
Yes. The minimum and maximum investment is different for each project and is set by the developer/operating partner.
Investing
The landscape for development finance has changed significantly since 2008, with many traditional lenders pulling out of the market. Short-term property finance is a popular form of funding for professional property investors, landlords and developers that need to move quickly to secure a purchase, release funds to move onto the next stage of their property project or finance small-scale housing developments. This sort of funding is typically unavailable at the required speed with traditional lenders.
Loans are secured with a first legal charge over the property or development site. This means that the borrower remains the legal owner of the property but the creditor gains sufficient rights over it to enable them to enforce their security (e.g. to take possession of the property or sell it. This is great for investors as it means that if something goes wrong, you are protected to a large degree by the value of the physical asset. This gives you peace of mind and means you are much more likely to be repaid, but remember regardless of the charge, your capital is still placed at risk and you can lose money when you invest in property.
1) Enquiry & Initial Assessment
- Send an enquiry to our team: Through online platform, email or phone.
- The case will be assessed at a high level by our team.
- If the enquiry is approved, we’ll request the borrower to send a suite of documents, typically including, planning permission, build costs, architects drawings etc.
2) Term Sheet
- If the project passes the initial assessment Property Bridges would issue a term sheet outlining the terms of the loan, including interest rates, arrangement fee, and term.
- When the term sheet is signed, we contact the borrower to obtain a commitment fee.
3) Full Due Diligence
- Once the valuer receives instruction, they will contact the borrower to arrange access to the property, and the necessary supporting documentation.
- On receipt of a valuation report, we conduct a full case assessment and draw up a credit report.
- If the property valuation does not match the value initially stated on the application documents, we may update the term sheet.
4) Legals
- Our solicitors will have a kick-off call with the borrower’s solicitor and ourselves before any legal work begin.
- The cost of this work will be charged directly to the facility. The fee will be variable, depending on each borrower’s case and will be additional to the charges of the solicitors working on their behalf.
- Once all requisitions are satisfied, the loan will get a final check from our team before being submitted to the platform.
5) Completion
- Prior to completion, we will call the borrower directly to confirm the loan details and make post-settlement servicing arrangements.
- After our final checks have been made, the borrower’s funds will be placed in escrow for drawdown. Drawdowns will be made in tranches so as to offer lenders the best returns and prevent performance drag.
6) Ongoing Monitoring
- We will regularly meet borrowers in person at their sites during the project to ensure that works are being carried out as expected and appropriate third-party compliances are issued during the build. This is crucial to ensure timely repayment of the loans. Due diligence and monitoring costs are charged to the borrower.
Despite detailed due diligence and monitoring, many issues can arise during the construction process. These include direct factors, such as cost overruns and indirect factors, such as bad weather. Projects can overrun, causing borrowers to miss the exit date of the loan.
As soon as there is any indication of a delay which may mean the repayment date is missed, we would contact the borrower to discuss rectification of the issues. Should there be an ongoing delay, which cannot be rectified over the remaining programme duration, they will then be required to apply for an extension to the facility. A negotiation will follow, agreeing the additional costs/charges for such, and this would be communicated onto the lenders on the platform. Once this is agreed with the borrower, the extension would be implemented by way of an amendment to the facility agreement.
Should a default occur, such as a delay, and the borrower fails to rectify this within the prescribed timeline, default interest will be charged from the date the default crystallises. This higher interest rate is designed to prompt the borrower to exit as soon as possible or rectify the default to our satisfaction.
If the borrower fails to repay at the end of the extended term, the borrower enters a pre-litigation stage. If no solution can be reached, we gather all the necessary evidence should enforcement of repossession be required. In the unlikely event that this doesn’t prompt a resolution with the borrower, we would then instruct our solicitors to take action against the borrower. If no solution is found this may result in Property Bridges appointing our receiver Kirby Healy to step in and recover the outstanding debt. All the necessary step in rights are included within the facility and security documents at the outset of the loan.
The enforcement process involves the sale of the property against which the loan was secured. Once the sale and enforcement costs have been subtracted the loan is repaid, any additional funds are then paid to the borrower. If there’s a shortfall in the proceeds received, we may look to recover it from the borrower’s personal guarantor or take action against the borrower and or their company. That said, the LTV and LTC limits we operate under ensure that only in a market crisis would such a loss occur. The time it takes to complete the enforcement process will vary from case-to-case.
We perform background checks on borrowers using credit data provider Stubbs Gazette. Further to this, we look into the borrowers professional past and previous property industry experience and assess whether they are suitable borrowers and whether they have suitable partners in place such as contractors and design team. With these checks complete we focus on performing a full due diligence assessment on the development project.
MangoPay is a leading online payment technology firm which we use as our payments provider. They have a full E-Money issuer license granted by the European Union and also assist us with our AML (Anti-money laundering) and KYC (Know your customer) checks.
As soon as you sign up to the Property Bridges site you will automatically be set up with a MangoPay account. When you make a deposit or investment, that money is held in your ring-fenced client account until the investment opportunity becomes fully funded. When an opportunity becomes fully funded, the money in your client account is transferred into the account of the borrower.
On your personal bank statements, you may notice that you have been debited by MangoPay, and not Property Bridges.
Please note that your funds are not protected by the Deposit Guarantee Scheme.
Have a general question, or one which is not covered in the FAQs?
Borrowers
The borrower is responsible for Property Bridges legal fees in addition to their own solicitor’s fees. Prior to Property Bridges instructing solicitors for any legal work, the borrower is required to lodge legal fees inclusive of VAT with their own solicitor on an undertaking basis.
For us to consider an application there must be an independent valuation that is less than three months old. We also reserve the right to request a second valuation at the borrower’s expense.
Commercial, retail, mixed-use and single family residential projects. Using the search tool, members can select the exact type of investment property they are looking for, whether it’s cash-flow producing properties or acquisition and disposition of real estate development projects, Katipult offers attractive opportunities across all asset types and across different regions.
Have a general question, or one which is not covered in the FAQs?
General
Peer-to-peer lending is the practice of lending money to unrelated individuals or businesses, “peers”, without going through traditional financial intermediaries like banks, often through online peer to peer lending platforms. Both the investor and the borrower benefit, as the lender achieves higher interest rates and the borrower lower interest rates than would be on offer if either had gone through a bank.
The era of the internet, including the rise of the electronic payments systems, has made this new age of peer to peer lending possible.
With interest rates at all-time lows, it’s natural that savers and investors are now looking for alternative avenues to put their money. Peer to peer lending provides many benefits including;
- High Returns: Lenders enjoy returns that are several percentage points above saving rates.
- Security: By securing the loan against an asset such as a property, the risk associated with the investment becomes significantly lower.
- Transparency: Individuals like knowing who they are lending their money to and for what purpose.
- Direct Lending: Lending to a construction project within a community provides many benefits to the local area and enhances the investment experience.
Property peer to peer lending has already been hugely successful in more developed alternative finance markets such as the US and the UK and is one of the fastest growing sectors of alternative finance.
About Property Bridges
We are a leading online peer to peer platform that facilitates loans to the construction sector. We source, assess and manage the risk associated with lending to the construction sector. We offer investors access to great asset backed securities and provide property developers with fast, efficient specialist financing.
With interest rates at all-time lows, it’s natural that savers and investors are now looking for alternative avenues to put their money. Peer to peer lending provides many benefits including;
- High Returns: Lenders enjoy returns that are several percentage points above saving rates.
- Security: By securing the loan against an asset such as a property, the risk associated with the investment becomes significantly lower.
- Transparency: Individuals like knowing who they are lending their money to and for what purpose.
- Direct Lending: Lending to a construction project within a community provides many benefits to the local area and enhances the investment experience.
Property peer to peer lending has already been hugely successful in more developed alternative finance markets such as the US and the UK and is one of the fastest growing sectors of alternative finance.
Crowdfunding became regulated in the European Union in 2023. During this year Property Bridges went through a rigorous application process with our regulatory authority. In November 2023 Property Bridges became authorised by the Central Bank of Ireland to operate as a Crowdfunding Service Provider.
The landscape for development finance has changed significantly since 2008, with many traditional lenders pulling out of the market. Short-term property finance is a popular form of funding for professional property investors, landlords and developers that need to move quickly to secure a purchase, release funds to move onto the next stage of their property project or finance small-scale housing developments. This sort of funding is typically unavailable at the required speed with traditional lenders.
1) Enquiry & Initial Assessment
- Send an enquiry to our team: Through online platform, email or phone.
- The case will be assessed at a high level by our team.
- If the enquiry is approved, we’ll request the borrower to send a suite of documents, typically including, planning permission, build costs, architects drawings etc.
2) Term Sheet
- If the project passes the initial assessment Property Bridges would issue a term sheet outlining the terms of the loan, including interest rates, arrangement fee, and term.
- When the term sheet is signed, we contact the borrower to obtain a commitment fee.
3) Full Due Diligence
- Once the valuer receives instruction, they will contact the borrower to arrange access to the property, and the necessary supporting documentation.
- On receipt of a valuation report, we conduct a full case assessment and draw up a credit report.
- If the property valuation does not match the value initially stated on the application documents, we may update the term sheet.
4) Legals
- Our solicitors will have a kick-off call with the borrower’s solicitor and ourselves before any legal work begin.
- The cost of this work will be charged directly to the facility. The fee will be variable, depending on each borrower’s case and will be additional to the charges of the solicitors working on their behalf.
- Once all requisitions are satisfied, the loan will get a final check from our team before being submitted to the platform.
5) Completion
- Prior to completion, we will call the borrower directly to confirm the loan details and make post-settlement servicing arrangements.
- After our final checks have been made, the borrower’s funds will be placed in escrow for drawdown. Drawdowns will be made in tranches so as to offer lenders the best returns and prevent performance drag.
6) Ongoing Monitoring
- We will regularly meet borrowers in person at their sites during the project to ensure that works are being carried out as expected and appropriate third-party compliances are issued during the build. This is crucial to ensure timely repayment of the loans. Due diligence and monitoring costs are charged to the borrower.
Investing
We perform background checks on borrowers using credit data provider Stubbs Gazette. Further to this, we look into the borrowers professional past and previous property industry experience and assess whether they are suitable borrowers and whether they have suitable partners in place such as contractors and design team. With these checks complete we focus on performing a full due diligence assessment on the development project.
You can invest any amount on the Property Bridges platform between €500 – €100,000.
You can transfer funds directly from your online back account by generating your personal IBAN which can be found in the ‘My Wallet’ section of the dashboard.
For full information on the process please click here.
The dashboard is your personal insights into your investments. You can see how your Investments are performing, your Total Interest Earned, Portfolio Value, and much more.
For more information about using the dashboard please click here.
An investment on our platform is an investment in a specific loan secured against property. This type of investment is commonly known as an asset backed security.
Once fully registered on the platform, investors transfer money to their Property Bridges account via bank transfer. Loans are advertised on the platform and all loans will provide details of duration, returns, the borrower and other relevant details related to the loan. Investors can then invest in their preferred loan at the click of a button. When a loan is fully funded investors start accruing interest throughout the duration of the loan. Upon completion of the loan the investor will receive their original investment including interest.
No, the income you earn is gross of tax. You are responsible for your own tax affairs. If any further advice is needed please contact a certified tax advisor.
Given the nature of the construction industry and the number of moving parts present in the construction industry and reliance on different parties, extention requests are not uncommon. The most typical reasons include:
- Planning applications take longer than expected
- Construction work has been unexpectedly delayed (eg. severe weather, delivery delays)
- The borrower is waiting for legal work to be signed before a sale can be completed.
Before making any active lending into our deals, Lenders need to fund their e-wallet. Our e-wallet and payments system is provided by MangoPay. MangoPay are an end to end payments solution that is particularly popular in the crowdfunding and peer to peer space. Your e-wallet will always display the funds available in your account.
No, funds do not earn any interest within the e-wallet.
Interest is calculated on a daily basis, however, the interest is paid at the end of the loan term along with the principle. These are paid back into the e-wallet.
In a mortgage by legal charge or technically ‘a charge by deed expressed to be by way of legal mortgage’, the debtor remains the legal owner of the property, but the creditor gains sufficient rights over it to enable them to enforce their security, such as a right to take possession of the property or sell it. The debtor in this instance can be 1st in line or 2nd in line, for the 2nd charge the debtor will need consent from the 1st debtor to place a charge on the title.
All of the loans offered to investors by Property Bridges are secured against Irish property by either a 1st or 2nd charge.
Yes they do. However, before placing any investment opportunity on our platform, the Property Bridges team reviews all aspects of the proposed deal to ensure quality and to prevent fraud. While we recognize that every investment involves risk, and there is always the risk of losing your capital, we strive to reduce that risk by providing you the transparency and tools you need to make an informed decision. As a Property Bridges member, you have full discretion to decide which projects to invest into and how much, and unlike other investments, your investments on Property Bridges will be secured by a tangible asset – property.
Our team screens each developer and conducts extensive scrutiny of the proposed project before agreeing to list their projects. Depending on the project, the security available and the current market rates we then make an offer to the borrower. However, past performance should not be an indicator of future performance.
No, you are not charged for investing on the Property Bridges Platform.
Auto Invest
Auto Invest is an investment feature that allows you to automatically invests chosen funds based on the criteria chosen by the investor to achieve a desired investment portfolio.
Read the full post here about how it works.
Auto Invest works by presenting the investor with a set of criteria that they would like to optimise to achieve their desired investment portfolio. Once the Auto Investment is turned on, funds will be automatically invested in loans that fit the chosen criteria, the funds will be invested at using an algorithm that distributes funds evenly and fairly.
Read the full post here about how it works.
Auto invest is a feature that secures you a place in the loan. If you choose ‘Up To €1,000’ it doesn’t necessarily mean that €1,000 will be invested into the loan. It means that the algorithm will check the number of investors who want a place in the loan and will allocate funds fairly, up to €1,000.
For example if you choose ‘Up to €1,000’ the algorithm will run its course and figure out the fair amount to input into the loan based on all the investors. This could mean your final investment amount in the loan could equal €967.
Don’t forget, users always have the option to manually invest in each loan too.
Security & Repayment
MangoPay is a leading online payment technology firm which we use as our payments provider. They have a full E-Money issuer license granted by the European Union and also assist us with our AML (Anti-money laundering) and KYC (Know your customer) checks.
As soon as you sign up to the Property Bridges site you will automatically be set up with a MangoPay account. When you make a deposit or investment, that money is held in your ring-fenced client account until the investment opportunity becomes fully funded. When an opportunity becomes fully funded, the money in your client account is transferred into the account of the borrower.
On your personal bank statements, you may notice that you have been debited by MangoPay, and not Property Bridges.
Please note that your funds are not protected by the Deposit Guarantee Scheme.
Loans are secured with a first legal charge over the property or development site. This means that the borrower remains the legal owner of the property but the creditor gains sufficient rights over it to enable them to enforce their security (e.g. to take possession of the property or sell it. This means that if something goes wrong, we can take steps to recover investor funds by selling the asset. However, even when in default the borrower can try to frustrate this process. Moreover, the value of the asset in a distressed scenario may not be enough to recover all lender funds.
Despite detailed due diligence and monitoring, many issues can arise during the construction process. These include direct factors, such as cost overruns and indirect factors, such as delays with Irish water or bad weather. Projects can often overrun, causing borrowers to miss the exit date of the loan.
As soon as there is any indication of a delay which may mean the repayment date is missed, we would contact the borrower to discuss rectification of the issues. Should there be an ongoing delay, which cannot be rectified over the remaining programme duration, they will then be required to apply for an extension to the facility. A negotiation will follow, agreeing the additional costs/charges for such, and this would be communicated onto the lenders on the platform. Once this is agreed with the borrower, the extension would be implemented by way of an amendment to the facility agreement.
Should a default occur, such as a delay, and the borrower fails to rectify this within the prescribed timeline, default interest will be charged from the date the default crystallises. This higher interest rate is designed to prompt the borrower to exit as soon as possible or rectify the default to our satisfaction.
If the borrower fails to repay at the end of the extended term, the borrower enters a pre-litigation stage. If no solution can be reached, we gather all the necessary evidence should enforcement of repossession be required. In the unlikely event that this doesn’t prompt a resolution with the borrower, we would then instruct our solicitors to take action against the borrower. If no solution is found this may result in Property Bridges appointing our receiver Kirby Healy to step in and recover the outstanding debt. All the necessary step in rights are included within the facility and security documents at the outset of the loan.
The enforcement process involves the sale of the property against which the loan was secured. Once the sale and enforcement costs have been subtracted the loan is repaid, any additional funds are then paid to the borrower. If there’s a shortfall in the proceeds received, we may look to recover it from the borrower’s personal guarantor or take action against the borrower and or their company. That said, the LTV and LTC limits we operate under ensure that only in a market crisis would such a loss occur. The time it takes to complete the enforcement process will vary from case-to-case.
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Risks Associated with Investments.
Important Disclosure: Although all our loans are secured against property, your capital is at risk and returns are dependent on the Irish property market. Estimated returns and past performance are not reliable indicators of future returns. Property Bridges provides due diligence and work with the independent professional service firms to ensure your loans are thoroughly assessed and accurately represented. Please read Property Bridges Terms and Conditions for more detailed terms and conditions to which users of propertybridges.com are subject.